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REVIEW 



RILEY'S TRANSLATION 



THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS 



BY 



• 



GEORGE M. LANE, 

Professor in Harvard College. 



[From the Bibliotheca Sacra- for April, 1853.] 



' 



<* ANDOVER: 

PRESS OF W. F. DRAPER k. BROTHER. 

1853. 




^ 



WU? 



^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

W. F. DRAPER AND BROTHER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



RILEY'S TRANSLATION OF PLAUTUS. 1 



These volumes belong to a collection of translations known by 
the name of Bonn's Classical Library. It would seem that, like 
many other of Mr. Bonn's publications, this collection was intended 
for a very wide circulation ; otherwise, the mystery of such faultless 
paper, such precise and truly English type, so substantial a binding, 
all for a very moderate price, would be inexplicable. In point of 
mechanical execution, nothing better could be desired for Homer, 
for Horace, or for Shakspeare. The literary labor has been per- 
formed chiefly by graduates of the two great English universities, 
and these translations are interesting as showing some phases of 
English study, as straws show which way the wind blows. Under 
the auspices of such a publisher, and favored by the extensive circu- 
lation to which the collection is destined, and which, indeed, it has 
already, the translators might have done much for the furtherance of 
that classical taste which has always been one of their countrymen's 
highest boasts. The service would be at best but an humble one, 
for the translator stands, in the dignity of his calling, below the edi- 
tor and commentator ; yet he is regarded as an associate, and his 
labors are no despicable contribution to philological science. It 
would, furthermore, be a great injustice if we expected from these 
volumes the learning and penetration of a great past generation : 
Bentley, snuffing out the errors of transcribers with the sagacity of 
a Spartan hound ; Porson, stubborn and wayward, but lord of the 
field he trod ; Elmsley, with his fine acumen and aqrifaia ; of such 
names a nation may well be proud. Yet, if they have passed away, 
and with them the hegemony of England has vanished, it need not 
deprive their epigonoi of the honor of doing great deeds, as vassals 
of some great kingdom take a pride in doing feats of valor, albeit 
under a foreign banner. A careful use of the labors of scholars we 

1 The Comedies of Plautus literally translated into English Prose, with Notes^ 
by Henry Thomas Riley, B. A., late Scholar of Clare Hall, Cambridge (England) < 
London: Henry G. Bohn. 1852. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 564 and 544. 



expect in an undertaking of this sort, though these scholars be 
foreigners. 

This use Mr. Riley, in common with the other translators, pro- 
fesses to have made. His book is founded mainly on the text of 
Ritschl, or, as he calls him throughout, Ritschel. We can hardly con- 
ceive how our translator never wondered, in the course of the long 
preparatory studies necessary for his undertaking, why the e was 
found in the Latinized name Ritschelius, while the Rhenish Museum, 
in which many of his choicest labors are gathered up, stared at him 
with Ritschl on the title-page. Did it never occur to him that, if the 
Latin termination were dropt, it would be wise to drop the e also ? 
Or has he silently followed some new theory of proper names, imi- 
tating the example of some Germans, who show us in their books 
such English names as Bentlei and JElmslei? But our translator 
commits a less pardonable offence than that of misspelling the name 
of Plautus's principal editor. He does not even know the name of 
the dramatist himself. His preface begins with these words : " The 
following pages contain a literal translation of all the existing works 
of Marcus Accius Plautus (or, as he is called by Ritschel and Fleck~ 
eisen, T. Maccius Plautus), the Roman comic writer." From this 
mode of expression we must infer that Mr. Riley still believes the 
real name to be M. Accius Plautus, and T. Maccius Plautus to be a 
wild speculation of the two editors. Now this leads to one of two 
conclusions ; either that the writer is not acquainted with the disser- 
tation de Plauti poetae ?iominibus, which would be an unpardonable 
piece of ignorance in him ; or, if he has read it, and still persists in 
calling the name M. Accius Plautus, in direct opposition to the usage 
of the learned since the appearance of that publication, it shows a 
degree of perverseness which is proof against all reasoning. 

Now a translation based on the text of Ritschl claims to be far in 
advance of all other translations of Plautus, and to give the results 
of the latest investigations in this department of Latin literature. 
And really, if there be any one period in the history of Plautinian 
criticism that deserves special commemoration, it is the interval which 
has elapsed between the publication of Thornton's version and the 
present moment. Nay, we may go still further, and say that in the 
last thirty years more has been done to restore the poet to his origi- 
nal form than in all the rest of the time since the revival of literature. 
However great, then, the merits of former translations may have 
been, a new one is imperatively demanded ; for of the two things 
demanded of a translator, the one, the felicitous diction, the inventive 



5 

power, and something of the afflatus of the original writer, remains 
always the same, and is in the main independent of time and change. 
But the critical requisites of the translator vary from year to year 
and from day to day ; he must be a rigid scholar, familiar with all 
the implements of his art, and able to follow the path of criticism 
and exegesis up to the moment when he writes. No translation, 
then, can be deemed a xzrjpa ig dsi, but only relatively good. 

Few of the great writers of antiquity have met with so hard a fate 
as Plautus. Of the hundred and thirty dramas ascribed to him by 
the ancients, only twenty have weathered the storms of time ; and 
these have come driving into port with battered hulks, shivered masts 
and drooping pennons. In ancient times prologues were added for 
practical representation on the stage ; glosses and interpretations of 
grammarians were modified and crept into the text as interpolations. 
By his own countrymen he was not at all times understood nor appre- 
ciated. And when at last the living, spoken word had died out, the 
difficulties of the metre — rough in comparison with the burnished 
and glittering rhythms of the Augustan age — added only to the 
many corruptions which were distorting the text. Of the few remain- 
ing plays, the best manuscripts contain only portions. When Latin 
literature began to be zealously studied at the revival of letters, it 
was a matter of great consequence to possess a complete and read- 
able text of Plautus ; but a real text, in the present sense of the word, 
was impossible, nor, indeed, was it under the circumstances necessary. 
Gradually, clearer views were attained with regard to the state of 
the manuscripts, and codices mutilated to a great extent, were seen 
to rest on firmer foundations than the smoother but more suspicious 
copies of a later age. But the art of criticism was slow in its un- 
foklings ; gut ding will weile haben ; and before the great laws of this 
art were developed by Reiske and Bekker, all that was done was 
sporadic and disconnected. Even Gronov's edition, published at 
Amsterdam, which for many years passed as the Vulgata, betrays 
little recognition of philological method. 

In the latter half of the last century, Friedrich Wolfgang Reiz, 
professor at Leipsic, edited the Rudens. The merits of Reiz, both 
in this and in other works, is not small ; one honor, especially, is his, 
that of being the first German to comprehend and advocate the laws 
of metre, which had been laid down by Bentley. 1 A peculiar mental 

1 In opposition to the younger Burmann, who attacked the Bentlcian system 
in the preface to his Phacdrus, Reiz wrote a dissertation entitled Burniannum de. 
metris Terent. jiulicare non potuisse. 

1* 



organization, however, unfitted him for writing, and his main influence 
was exerted through his university lectures. These, according to the 
testimony of his pupils, must have been preeminently suggestive and 
inspiring; and among his auditors there was one fully fitted to imbibe 
the new ideas advocated by the master, to carry them out with force 
and vigor, and to publish them to the world. Tins was Gottfried 
Hermann. It is an interesting psychological fact that, with all his 
felicitous audacity and originality of thought, the authors he treated 
with special predilection in all his after life, were those he had stud- 
ied at the university. 1 Among other writers, Plautus engaged his 
attention, and eleven years after the publication of the Rudens by 
Reiz, Hermann came out with his edition of the Trinummus (1800) ; 
and from that time to the present, steady progress has been made in 
the criticism of all the plays. 

Nothing can be further from our purpose, in the review of a mere 
translation, than to attempt a sketch of the criticism of Plautus. 
But we have grave charges to bring against Mr. Riley, and to sub- 
stantiate these we are compelled to glance at a few of the most 
prominent changes and eras of the text. Hermann ended a long 
and honorable career in 1848. Some time before his death, he had 
seen that the Augean labor of editing Plautus must be undertaken 
by some younger man. Who this was to be, could be a matter of no 
doubt ; it was Friedrich Ritschl, formerly professor in Breslau, now 
in Bonn ; and at a congress of philologians, held, we believe, at Dres- 
den, he solemnly entrusted Plautus to him as a precious legacy. 
Thus it has been reserved for the third generation to finish what the 
first had begun. But the master did not live to see the ripened fruit 
of the pupil's labors. The first volume of Ritschl's complete edition 
appeared in 1848, dedicated with pious veneration to the Manes of 
Hermann. Since then six more plays have been published, and the 
remainder will appear at no long intervals. 

We must pause for a moment to notice the edition of Weise, Qued- 
linburg and Leipsic, 1838, in two octavo volumes. This is utterly 
without worth, and undeserving of mention among the editions of 
Plautus. But Mr. Riley has made it the basis of his second volume, 
with the exception of the Amphitruo and Rudens. We may con- 
gratulate ourselves that he has done so ; for what has passed through 
the hands of both Weise and Riley is so corrupt that it saves us from 
all consideration of it. 

1 See the interesting remarks of Otto Jahn, in his Gottfried Hermann, eiue 
Gedaehtnissrede, Leipsic, 1849, p. 8. 



Besides Ritschl's two editions, the larger with critical apparatus, 
and the smaller scholarum in usum, containing only the text, one 
other deserves special notice. It is that of Alfred Fleckeisen, pub- 
lished in Teubner's excellent collection of classics. Dr. Fleckeisen, 
who is quite a young man, a teacher at the gymnasium of Weilburg 
in Nassau, began his Plautinian studies at the university ; rigorous 
methodical investigation pursued ever since that time has enabled 
him to contribute much to the elucidation of Plautus. Of his edition, 
the first volume appeared in 1850, and contains the Amphitruo, 
Captivi, Miles Gloriosus, Rudens and Trinummus ; in two of these 
plays he was consequently able to avail himself of Ritschl's publica- 
tion. The second volume came out in 1851, containing the Asinaria, 
Bacchides, Curculio, Pseudolus and Stichus. Of these five plays, 
the Bacchides, Pseudolus and Stichus had been edited by Ritschl. 
But in these Fleckeisen shows anything but a slavish adherence to 
authority ; and where he had not his valuable assistance, though he 
modestly confesses he enjoyed no other critical aids than such as had 
already appeared in print, his own emendations are such as to give 
the book an independent and permanent value. 

The present position, then, of the plays of Plautus, is a peculiar 
one. For the first time we have a firm critical basis as far as the 
labors of Ritschl have extended ; the manuscripts have been arranged 
in classes, and the better ones collated with extreme diplomatic fidel- 
ity. But, owing to the great corruption of the text, this process fails 
to satisfy the demands to be made of an editor of Plautus. Hence 
Ritschl goes back a step further, and, starting with the principle, that 
the lawlessness of the metres is due rather to the ignorance of the 
copyists than to the poet himself, he restores order and harmony by 
transpositions and emendations, not arbitrarily made, but founded 
on a lifelong observation of the laws which the dramatist follows. 1 
Mr. Riley has done well then in taking Ritschl's edition for his ba- 
sis, and, as this is the only thing in his translation we can honestly 
praise, we must allow him all due credit for what he could not avoid. 
But for a good translation, two things are requisite: first, good 
means ; and, secondly, ability to use them. Means, Mr. Riley has, 
ability to use them he has not. As far as we can judge from 
internal evidence, he seems to be a well-disposed young man, who 
after finishing his studies at the university — what he has studied he 

1 The laws of criticism are well grouped under four heads : integritas linguae 
Latinae, concinnitas numerorura, sententiae sanitas, consuctudo Plautina. — 
Praef. Mil. p. xxi. 



8 

has not informed us, but we will charitably suppose it was not phi- 
lology — took it into his head to make a translation of Plautus. A 
dictionary and grammar he had before ; and so buying a copy of 
Ritschl's editio minor scholarum in usum, he seated himself, trans- 
lated his pensum every day, and, when he had done enough for a 
volume, printed it. But translating a classical author is nowadays a 
very different thing from what Mr. Riley conceives it to be. Go 
back of course we must to the best text ; yet this is the least thing 
to be done in the case of any author, the first step only in the case 
of an author like Plautus. Ritschl has ransacked every nook and 
cranny of classical antiquity and turned all the splendor of his lore 
upon his favorite author. But his task has been a gigantic one, and 
he may well be pardoned, if here and there a corrupt place has es- 
caped his eagle eye. The text of every play gives the final result 
of his investigations at the moment of publishing it ; but the yrjoddxcQ 
aisi Tiolla didaaxofievog of Solon, no man may say with more truth 
than he. After a series of brilliant dissertations, enough to satisfy 
most men's yearnings for fame, not a year passes by without copious 
testimony to his zeal in the form of programmes, articles for philo- 
logical journals, etc., none of which may be neglected by the classical 
student, still less by the teacher or translator. Hardly has he 
printed one play, before in the preface to the next he corrects not a 
few places which he had passed unnoticed. 

The text of Plautus being thus, as it were, in the process of recon- 
struction, we may fairly expect from a translator independent re- 
search. If he have not made this, we may yet call his work nega- 
tively good, if he collates and treasures up what has been done before 
him. When Mr. Riley says his translation is founded on the text of 
Ritschl, he says what is not true, and to screen him from the charge 
of wilful misrepresentation, we must be lenient enough to tax him 
with unpardonable carelessness. It is not true that he has followed 
rigorously, as he should have done, the bare text of Ritschl. Still 
less is it true that he has followed this scholar in all his labors, and 
comprehended his spirit. To do this, a long preparatory course of 
study is necessary, and much more erudition than Mr. Riley gives 
token of. The preliminary works are scattered here and there in 
pamphlets or buried in philological journals. The mere labor of col- 
lating and digesting what has been printed on Plautus, is no trifling 
one. Probably not a public library in America contains one-tenth 
of the fundamental works. The library of Harvard College has 
nothing at all. But this is no excuse for the translator's neglect of 



duty; on the contrary, the difficulty of obtaining such works is the 
very reason why he should have incorporated the results in his 
version, the only thing which would have made it acceptable to 
scholars. 

In point of Plautinian exegesis, we have some very good works on 
single subjects or detached places, but naturally, this branch must lag 
behind till a proper text is established. As a whole, very little has 
been done since the edition of Taubmann, 1605 — 1624. Here, again, 
Mr. Riley's book is lamentably defective ; he says, in the preface to 
the second volume : " Particular care has been taken to explain the 
difficult passages, and it is hoped the notes may prove of value to the 
classical student." The classical student who finds these notes val- 
uable is to be pitied. Here and there he will find, to be sure, some 
very diverting blunders of the translator, the only original things in 
the whole book. But, with these exceptions, the notes are so anti- 
quated and betray so little cognizance of what has been done during 
the past century, that one might easily think Mr. Riley had slept as 
many years as Epimenides of Crete. 

Translations differ naturally, often by imperceptible grades, ac- 
cording to the ability and taste of the translators. Of course, they 
are at best but an imperfect substitute for the original, and are to 
this somewhat as the yavraala of the Stoics was to their xctTalrjipig, 
or perfect comprehension. With the original artist, form and matter 
are supplementary ideas, mutually conditioning and conditioned ; the 
same inspiration that suggests the idea strikes out the appropriate 
form. The translator must put asunder what God hath joined to- 
gether. One factor of the original — the idea — he retains as it is; 
but with the more important and characteristic part, the beauty of 
form, he must either dispense altogether, or he must create some- 
thing new in place of the original. We can now make an approxi- 
mation to the original in two ways, which we may call analogy and 
resemblance. The former, we may compare to sculpture ; the lat- 
ter, to painting. It is to the employment of wholes and masses that 
the plastic art owes its dignity ; a Gerard Dow-like minuteness of 
detail would be only repulsive. The effect of painting, on the other 
hand, — and here we do not speak of the highest branches of paint- 
ing, — is produced by the accurate resemblance of parts, not of wholes. 
A Greek tragedy, for example, translated analogically, would as a 
whole affect the mind of the reader not unlike the original ; the 
coloring of tropes and metaphors would change ; the lyrical parts 
would be given by kindred lyrical measures in English ; the dialogue 



10 

by kindred dramatic measures. In the second class of translations, 
which we have compared to painting, the dignity of mass and form 
vanishes, and, if the original be a poem, the stubborn difference of the 
two languages inevitably reduces it to prose. The loss, as a work of 
art, is somewhat compensated by a succession of faithful little pic- 
tures. But on the rigorous fidelity of these pictures all the merit of 
a literal translation depends. 

Let us now look into the details of Mr* Riley's version, and see 
how he answers our conditions. We would premise that, in the fol- 
lowing pages, we shall treat mainly the first three plays of his trans- 
lation, the Trinummus, the Miles Gloriosus, and the Bacchides. 
But if the book have any character at all, it can be learned from 
these ; nor can we do Mr. Riley injustice by taking a portion of his 
book as the representative of the rest, for we may fairly suppose 
these three important dramas to be done with as much care as any 
in the book. At any rate, the majority of his readers will probably 
not care to advance further ; and it was only the illusive hope of 
finding something to praise in the work, that has enabled us to 
keep right onward, as far as we have done. 

Under the head of criticism, belong the spurious verses or interpo- 
lations which Ritschl particularly has hunted out with wonderful saga- 
city, and exposed with convincing logic. In the English, these are 
not indicated at all as supposititious ; we read over them as smoothly 
as we do over the indubitably genuine parts of the poet. Yet in the 
English, if anywhere, we need brackets to make the matter at once 
plain to the eye ; since in the original, apart from the sense, some de- 
fect in the form or the metre betrays the hand of the bungler; 
whereas in the translation, the genuine parts being reduced to quite 
as bad English as the spurious insertions, the distinction is not so read- 
ily made. More extensive, and for this reason the readier recognized, 
are the interpolations which were made chiefly by Italian scholars at 
the revival of letters, to fill out gaps in the manuscripts. Of this we 
have a notable instance in the beginning of the Bacchides, where a 
long prologue is inserted to make amends for the loss of the first few 
scenes of the play. This interpolation is so ill-managed, both in 
its matter, which is based on a totally false conception of the nature 
of the whole play — it is put into the mouth of Silenus, who is intro- 
duced because the sisters in the play are called Bacchides — and in 
point of form, which differs as much from the style of Plautus as 
black does from white, that modern critics pass it by unnoticed. 
Mr. Riley translates it like an integral part of the play, appending 



11 

the following note ; the reasons assigned in it are truly diverting to 
read in the second half of the nineteenth century : " There is little 
doubt that this Prologue is spurious" (we hope he is using a litotes 
here), "but as it is prefixed to many of the editions" (to what sort of 
editions ?) " and to Thornton's and the French translations, it is here 
inserted. Lascaris, the Greek grammarian, says, in a letter to Bem- 
bo, that it was discovered by him in Sicily. Some writers have sup- 
posed it to have been written by the Poet Petrarch." We should 
like to be informed who thinks it nowadays to be the work of the 
Poet Petrarch ? It is now well made out that this scene was composed 
by Antonio Beccadello of Naples, who is generally called, from his 
birthplace, Antonius Panormita. 1 This we notice in passing. A 
translator should not for a moment think of alluding to such ineptiae. 

Another general fault is the improper division of the acts and 
scenes. The traditional arrangement which has generally been fol- 
lowed, is arbitrary in the extreme, and has hardly presumption in 
its favor. We do not remember that Mr. Riley justifies himself 
anywhere for his return to this ; but this is so important a step back- 
ward from the plain indications of the book before him, that his rea- 
ders ought to have been specially warned. 

The genuine parts of the dramas are not always preserved with 
the same conscientiousness with which the spurious lines are trans- 
lated. Sometimes single words are omitted without much real 
injury to the sense; but such omissions destroy our confidence in 
the translation, and make its accuracy appear very questionable. 
In the Trinummus, for example, all authorities without excep- 
tion read (v. 1070): "Mare, terra, caelum, di, uostram fidem;" 
in the translation: "O seas, earth, heavens, by my trust in you," 
the word di being omitted. In the Bacchides, 243, Chrysalus 
returning from abroad salutes his master, whom he meets all of 
a sudden, with the words : " Seruos salutat Nicobulum Chrysalus." 
Nicobulus answers : " Pro di immortales, Chrysale, ubi mist fi- 
lius?" There is a certain q&og here in the vocative Chrysale, 

1 Cf. Ritschl. de Plauti Bacchidibus, 1839, and in his Parerga Plautina, Leip- 
sic, 1845, p. 401. We would recommend to Mr. Riley's notice the remarks on 
p. 399 : :t sive inventionem spcctas poeticam ; nihil excogitari ab ipsius fabulae 
argumento et nexu alienius potuit, nihil magis abhorrens ab antiquitatis sensu, 
moribus veteris comoediae nihil repugnantius, nihil sententiarum vel insulsitate 
frigidius vel obscuritatc impeditius vel earundem molestius repetitione ; sive 
verba et numeros contemplaris. nihil sermonis aut inficetius iciunitate aut inso- 
lentia importunius. prosodiae autem et metrorum puerili impcritia nihil turpius, 
immo flagitiosius." 



12 

which expresses the master's surprise at meeting him thus unex- 
pectedly ; we may paraphrase it by " Why Chrysalus ! Is that 
actually you !" The vocative is omitted in the translation (p. 165). 
To give an instance from the third play, the Miles, 874, the transla- 
tion omits (p. 114) the word ordine, "in order, from beginning to 
end," of the original " rem omnem demonstraui ordine." In other 
cases the omission does more injury to the sense, e. g. Miles Glor., 
559, 560 : Si ego me sciente paterer uicino meo Earn fieri aput me 
tam insignite iniuriam; the translation (p. 98) omits "aput me;" 
these words cannot well be omitted, for Periplecoraenus speaks with 
great deliberation, and it was naturally a cumulus to the offence, if 
Periplecomenus suffered it to be committed in his own house. The 
omissions occasionally extend to parts of lines or even whole lines ; 
Miles Glor., 860, the phrase " quia ego sibi non dixerim," is omitted 
for no conceivable reason ; in the same play the translator has wholly 
misapprehended vs. 1190, 1191 ; of the other blunders we shall speak 
in their place. We mention the passage now only to notice that he 
has entirely left out the words : file iubebit me ire cum ilia ad por- 
tum ; if these words had .been inserted in their place it would have 
spared Mr. Riley the mortification of many blunders in one short 
sentence (translation, p. 131). Immediately below, the scene ends 
in the English with " Come then begone. But see the door opens 
opportunely" (p. 131); whereas the Latin has one whole line 
more (v. 1199) : "Hilarus exit, inpetravit: inhiat, quod nusquamst, 
miser." 

Neither do we find, apart from the omissions, a close adherence to 
the established text. At intervals we meet with traces of an eclectic 
criticism not felicitously applied, and indicating that the writer had 
other copies before him, and intentionally or unintentionally culled from 
them. V. 1160 of the Miles, for instance, reads as follows : 'Inpe- 
trabis, inperator, quoad ego potero, quod uoles : this is rendered 
(p. 129): "General, you shall assign me whatever you please, so 
far as I am capable." Here Mr. Riley seems to emend from inpe- 
trabis inperator to inperabis. That the emendation is altogether un- 
tenable, the words quoad ego potero show at a glance. In the same 
play, v. 708, Ritschl emends to ['Ideo ut liberi] me curant : with the 
observation " glossemate expulsum principium versus aliqua coniec- 
tura probabiliter redipisci studuimus." But the glossema does not 
trouble Mr. Riley, who follows that, not the emendation. In gene- 
ral, it may be remarked, that the Miles is full of errors of this sort ; 
we mention one or two more instar omnium; v. 1239 seq. : Si pdl 



13 

me nolet ducere uxorem, genua amplectar Atque obsecrabo. alio 
modo si non quibo inpetrare Consciscam letum. The meaning of the 
alio modo is apparent, but the English book has (p. 133) : " If I 
shall be unable to prevail upon him in some way or other" without 
an indication that this is not the reading of the text he professes to 
follow, but the emendation of Acidalius. On p. 91 the translation 
reads — it is the graceful little speech of Philocomasium on her 
feigned arrival from sea : " Where with raging billows I have been 
so recently dismayed;" what means so recently? What codex or 
what editor has any indication of a nuper or the like ? What neces- 
sity is there of any deviation from the plain words of Plautus : " sae- 
uis fliictibus ubi sum adflictata multum" {Miles, 414). 

In the Bacchides we notice one curious thing which is to us alto- 
gether inexplicable; v. 711 (translation, p. 186) : Recta porta inua- 
dam extemplo in oppidum anticum et uetus. An attempt to point 
out here any essential difference between the anticum and the uetus 
would end in a mere quibble ; Plautus likes occasionally to add the 
one word to the other as a sort of supplement, e. g. Trin. 381, Hi's- 
toriam ueterem atque antiquam ; Mil. 751 : orationem ueterem atque 
antiquam ; Most. 2, 2, 45 : scelus anticum et uetus ; so \Amphitr. 
118], Pers. 1, 2, 1. In this he is imitated by later writers, as by 
Tacitus and Juvenal. 1 The pleonasm is the converse of novus et 
recens, and resembles exactly the Greek nalaibg y,cu a.Q%cuog. Mr. 
Riley renders the place in question : " Straight at the gate that in- 
stant I'll attack the old. town and the new." 

We have observed that, in almost all instances where grammars 
and dictionaries give no solution of a new word or phrase, our trans- 
lator is quite at fault. Latin lexicography and Latin grammar will 
be very materially modified by the investigations made within the 
past few years, and still to be made. New words, new forms of words, 
and new principles of syntax, must first be established on the authority 
•of manuscripts, discussed in commentaries and monographs, and ap- 
proved by scholars, before they find their tardy place in the organism 
of grammar, or are garnered up in the treasure-house of dictionaries. 
Hence these works are always lagging behind the age. The profes- 
sional philologist cannot do without them, but he would be a wretched 
philologist who did not stand above them, and was not in a condition 
to modify, control and augment them. The purest sources for Plau- 
tus have furnished many new words for which corruptions stood in 

1 This usage is illustrated by Hcinrieh, on Juvenal 6, 21, and Doedeilein, 8v- 
nonymik, IV. p. 84. 

2 



the old editions. For instance, the adjective vesculus === tiny, a di* 
minutive of vescus, small, is restored by Ritschl in the Trin. 888 : 
Est minusculum alterum, quasi uesculum uinarium. This form i9 
attested by Festus, and confirmed by the analogy of such diminutives 
as venustulus, liquidiusculus. 1 Mr. Riley confounds this with vas- 
culum vinarium, the old reading, and renders it "about the size of 
a wine-cask," taking uinarium for the adjective and uesculum for 
the substantive. In the Bacchides, 929, Ritschl, following others^ 
restores termento for tormento in the sentence : non peius termento 
ruit. This is done on the express testimony of Festus, who assures 
us that termentum for detrimentum occurs in the Bacchides ; and 
as this is the only place in what we have of this play where Plautus 
could have used it, we can have no hesitation in adopting it, in 
preference to the reading of the manuscripts. Mr. Riley (p. 195) 
goes back to tormentum in his translation : " Not more decidedly did 
it fall by the engine of war" 

The nominative singular canes for canis is critically certain in 
Plautus, Trin. \12 : Fecisset edepol, ni haec praesensisset canes ; 
translation, p. 11 : "F faith, he would have done it if the dogs had 
not perceived this in time." The praesensissent, which some manu- 
scripts have in this line, is a mere guess of ignorant copyists, who, 
like Mr. Riley, did not understand the canes. 

On p. 23, we find the following note on the value of the drachma : 
" Olympic drachmae) — V. 425. As already mentioned, the 'drach- 
ma' was about ninepence three-farthings in value. As one hundred 
made a 'mina,' one-fourth of the price received would go to satisfy 
the banker's claim* The passage in the translation which this note is 
intended to illustrate is : " There were a thousand Olympic drachmae 
paid to the banker, which you were owing upon account ;" the original 
reads in Ritschl's text : " Trapezitae mille drachumarum Olympicum, 
Quas de ratione dehibuisti, redditae." The note alluded to omits the 
essential point to be explained, namely, what an Olympic drachma is. 
We fear that our translator will not be able to explain this by any 
citation from the ancients, nor by any authority of works on numis- 
matics. Furthermore, the contraction of the genitive plural Olym- 
picum for Olympicarum is rare. 2 The fact is, the Olympic drachma 
is a anaS, Xtyopzvov, and, though Ritschl has it in his text, if the 
translator had used a due degree of care, he would have seen that the 
bad penny soon returns, 8 but in a«more intelligible form: Trapezitae 



1 Prolegg. Trin. p. lxxxi. 2 Ibid. p. lxxxix. 3 Praefat. Stichi, p. xix. 



15 

mille drachumarum olim Olympicho. Olympichus or Olympicus is 
the name of a man. This reading Fleckeisen has properly adopted 
in his text. 

We subjoin one or two further instances where the meaning of 
words has been misapprehended ; Bacchides, 803-305, of the pirates 
disappointed of their booty : 

Tristes flico, 
Quoniam extemplo a portu ire nos cum aurd uident, 
Subdiicunt lembum cdpilibus cassdntibus. 

Mr. Riley says : " Shaking their heads." Not so. The manuscripts 
have here to be sure quassantibus, which is an ancient corruption, 
as it is found in Servius, ad Georg. 1, 74. But capitibus quassan- 
tibus for " caput quassis," as Servius explains it, would hardly be 
Latin. Mr. Riley does not understand the cassare of the text, 
like casito as frequentative from cado. 1 It occurs, also, Miles, 852 
and 857, and Asinaria, 403 (Fleckeisen) ; two of these, three places 
are also mistranslated. Capite cassanti or capitibus cassantibus dif- 
fers very materially frQm quassare caput ; it = with drooping head, 
the gaze fixed on the ground from sadness or fear ; like Sophocles, 
Antig. 269, Xs'yei Tig elg, og nd-vzag ig m'dov x do a N bvgui (popo) 
noovTQE\p£v. 2 This meaning may be illustrated by Bacchides, G(58 : 
Niini qui tibi nummi exciderunt, ere, quod sic terrdm [tacens] Op- 
tuere ? Quid uos maestos tristisque esse conspicor ? and by the place 
referred to in the Asinaria, where Leonida enters angry cassanti 
capite, and with his looks bent on the ground does not see the other 
persons present. Quassare caput expresses not dejection and thought- 
fulness, but intense wrath ; Juvenal, 2, 130 : nee galearn quassas nee 
terram cuspide pulsas nee quereris patri? 3 It corresponds to the 
Greek aeitiv tjjv xecpalrjv : Soph. Antig. 289 : dXXct zavza xal ndlai 
noXecog Jdvdoeg [xohg cpsyovteg Ioqo&ovv ifioi Kqv(pq x.doa odovmg. 

In the same play, v. 273, we read : Chrys. Porro etiam ausculta 
pugnam quam uoluit dare ; Nicobul. Etiam quid porro ? hem, uccif i- 
trina haec nunc erit. The manuscripts have here accipe trina, which 
is unintelligible. For this Hermann (not "Ritschel" as Mr. Riley 
says) ingeniously emends accipitrina. How Mr. Riley came to 

1 The existence of this yerb is furthermore confirmed by the cassabundus, 
explained by Festus, p. 48, "crebro cadens" and by Varro, L. L., p. 141, Miiller, 
derived " a cadendo." 

w 2 The inaccurate statements of Freund, Dr. Andrews should have corrected, 
but has not. 

3 See Heinrich ad loc, \rhose citations by no means exhaust the suhject. 



+ 



translate it as he does we cannot see (p. 166) : "Besides, listen to 
another struggle of his as well which he was desirous to enter on. 
Nicob. What, besides as well ? Oho ! this will turn out now a reg- 
ular hawk's nest" Accipitrina has not found its way into the Lexi- 
con, not even the latest, as Klotz's, or Andrews's Freund. But in 
regard to the intended meaning of the emendation there can be, we 
imagine, no doubt, though we have not Hermann's explanation to 
refer to; accipurinus is the regular adjective from accipiter, like 
hirundininus, asininus, caninus, from hirundo, etc., and in general like 
adjectives in inus, from names of animals. The noun to be supplied 
is the preceding pugna, and the interpretation to be looked for in 
Pers. 3, 3, 5 : Populi labes, pecuniarum accipiter. 

Many other mistakes in this edition are less pardonable, as they 
show an ignorance of metre and grammar. For instance, Mil. Glor* 
v. 370 : Nunquam hercle deterrebor Quin uiderim id quod uiderim. 
Philocom. Ego stulta moror multum, Quae cum hoc insano fabuler ; 
translation, p. 88 : " By my faith, I shall never be intimidated from 
having seen what I really did see. Phil. In my foolishness / am 
delaying too long in parleying with this madman." We have always 
heard that a large portion of the time spent on the classics at 
Cambridge and Oxford was devoted to the making of Greek and 
Latin verse. Perhaps Mr. Riley with this practice may explain to 
us the use of the pyrrhich ta mo in the iambicus septenarius, if mo- 
ror means to delay. If moror multum be by Plautus, we must read 
moror multum = pcogaiveiv, " producta prima syllaba," as Nero did, 
in his pun on the word moror, according to Suetonius, vit. Ner. 35. 
If moror be not Plautinian, the emendations proposed, Set sumne ego 
mora multum or Pol ego sum mora multum, or (praef. Stich. p. xvii, 
note) ego mora moror multum, go back equally to the adjective [Mooog. 

A similar critical and prosodiacal blunder is made in the transla- 
tion (p. 122) of the anapaesticus septenarius of the Miles, 1026: 
Calidum refero ad te consilium : " I bring you back your clever plot." 
Though here a third and orthographical blunder is superadded. 
Mr. lliley has in his mind Calltdum refero, which a moment's consid- 
eration of the metre would have shown to be impossible. In general, 
one must read between the lines, and from the translation conjecture 
what word the translator had in his mind ; we read, for example, 
Mil. Glor. p. 98, translation : " Yes, but 'twas improperly done ; for 
it befits a person that is a servant to keep his eyes and hands and 
talk asleep." The Latin word corresponding to asleep is domitos. 
At the first glance one might think the asleep of the translation were 



17 

a free version, for domitos, in subjection ; one familiar, however, with 
Mr. Riley's ways, would not hesitate to assert that he took it for a 
form of the verb dormire. 

But it is tedious to dwell upon errors in detail, and to pick out 
flaws from which no general truths can be drawn, no principles de- 
duced. Inconsiderable, however, as they may seem in themselves, 
they all prove one fact, that for all critical purposes the book is worse 
than worthless. We are left, then, to another assumption, that this 
version is intended for popular circulation, for general reading. 

If this be the intention, we must again say the writer has disas- 
trously failed. We will not now speak of the higher qualifications of 
a translator. To an intelligent reader who takes up the book with- 
out a knowledge of Latin, it must be difficult to understand ; and one 
who is familiar with the original, and opens the book with the hope 
of meeting an old friend in a new garb, will be surprised at the awk- 
ward English Plautus uses ; we find repeatedly such phrases as 
" That is being carefully done" (p. 11), "When at any time the ground 
is being ploughed" {p. 29). See pp. 118, 128, 139, 167, etc. In di- 
rect questions introduced by utrum — an, the utrum is faithfully 
translated by whether. This may have been good English some cen- 
turies ago, although even then we suspect it was a Latinism or a 
Grecism. Nowadays it is chiefly heard in the lower classes of Latin 
schools, where teachers are constantly vexed at being obliged to cor- 
rect such translations as " Whether was it right for me to discover the 
treasure to him, or should I have permitted" (p. 11) ; or '■'•Whether 
should I be pretending that in jest or seriously" (p. 156). Quite 
uncalled for is the barbarous use of Directly as a conjunctive adverb ; 
p. 96, note : "Directly Sceledrus turns his back the old man calls out 
for Philocomasium." This occurs even in the text, p. 99 : " that 
directly the captain returns from the forum I may be caught at hom^" 
An English reader must furthermore smile at some of the graceful 
innovations, like (p. 157) : "Where then should I take my place? 
Bacch. Near myself, my life, that with a she-wit a he-wit may be 
reclining at the repast ;" p. 35 : " Give attention to your he-friends in 
the courts of justice, and not to the couch of your she-friend as you 
are wont to do." We have heard in common parlance of he-goats and 
she-goats, but he-wits and she-wits are something quite new. We can- 
not see the necessity of translating the simple hie homo this individual 
(p. 62), nor why a long conversation would not do (p. 122) as well as 
'"SilenyQuj" one. In the Miles (p. 86) the sentence " If I shall make 
her so as you may see her come out hence from our house," we are 

2* 



18 

totally at a loss to explain the words "so as" by any common prin- 
ciple of exegesis. 1 

It has always been accounted one of the most characteristic beau- 
ties of the two ancient languages that they present the concrete for 
the abstract, the sensuous and tangible for the immaterial. The 
stock of words is very scanty which express states, conditions, rela- 
tions of things, passions and affections. The names of objects and 
things, on the other hand, is large. Hence, in everything which 
passes beyond mere external description, the classical writers are 
limited to a narrow round. Yet here, as in physical forces, what is 
lost in breadth, is more than gained in intensity. The Greeks and 
Romans are yet of the earth, earthy. The cold and hueless outline 
of the intellectual idea has for them no independent life. They can- 
not lay it before you drawn with rigid measurements, with mathe- 
matical proportions, and with correct perspective. But in place of 
the abstract idea, they lay before you a form suggestive of it, a form 
which you can see and touch and feel, trembling with life, glowing 
and glittering with shifting tints from Nature's own sun. They do 
not seek to wrest from you the cool assent of the understanding, but 
they would make you laugh and weep. They could not well dis- 
course of the sun's radiation and actinism and polarization ; but you 
hold your breath and crouch down when they tell you of Phoebus 
Apollon speeding down like night, of the arrows clattering on his 
shoulders, of the terrible clang of his silver bow. The energy of this 
primitive materialism permeating all parts of the language, is what 
the translator into any modern language, and particularly the trans- 
lator into French and English, must most strive to give. Sometimes 
in despair he must confess that the dull colors on his pallet will not 
depict what lies before him dashed out with a bold hand and in Ty- 
rian hues. Sometimes he can reach it, though he must strive and 
strain in order to accomplish it ; and sometimes, though rarely, the 
prosaic soberness of the English will allow him to give a faithful tran- 
script of figurative speech, though it may be with the loss of the har- 
monious rhythm of the original. Strip Plautus of his rhythm, and 

1 Bacchides, 1156 : Nicoh. Quid est quod pudoat ? Philox. Set amieo ho- 
mini tibi, quod uolo, credere certumst ; translation, p. 206 : " Nieob. What is 
it that you're ashamed about?" (It should be, "What have you to be ashamed 
about V) The following words of Philoxenus are not to be understood : " Still 
as yon are a person, a friend of mine, I'm determined to entrust, you with what I 
could wish." It would be easy to emend u a personal fr' end ^ but if this had been 
the intention of the translator he would have added it in an erratum. 






19 

let Horatian cavillers say what they may, it is prose, but prose bor- 
dering hard on poetry. Strip him of his characteristic diction, and 
it is a higher potency of prose, the prose of prose. The idea may 
remain the same, but in place of the prattle of childhood it is given 
with the effete and inane mumblings of senility. In this transfor- 
mation our translator has been very successful ; he gives us the pur- 
est abstraction of the idea, and is a perfect philological iconoclast. 
If our duty as reviewer required us to enumerate all the places 
where he has sinned in point of language and inadequacy of expres- 
sion, we should say, see his works throughout. But as such a com- ■ 
parison would not offer much that was instructive, unless it showed 
us the inferiority of the moderns to the ancients, we propose to cite 
a few cases where the language is needlessly weakened. 

In the Trinummus. 615 (translation, p. 33), Stasimus says : " Prd- 
pemodum, quid ilh'c festinet, sentio ac subolet mihi." The subolet of 
this verse expressing a function of the senses is more vigorous than 
any verb meaning mere intellectual action ; Stasimus is dogging after 
the matter, and might be addressed as Odysseus is in the Aias : 

Kwoq viaxouvqg wg rig tvqtvog fidotg • 

And in connection w%h subolet even the weaker verb sentio is 
strengthened and becomes sensuous. In the translation : " I pretty 
nearly guess and I have a strong suspicion," the naivete of the Latin 
is entirely lost. Similar to this is the translation on p. 38 : " For 
my part I know you how you are disposed in mind ; / see it, I dis- 
cover, 1 apprehend. In this English there is no peculiar significancy 
in the three verbs, and any of them might be omitted without injury 
to the sense. Not so in the Latin, where the verbs express operations 
of the different senses (v. 698), uideo, subolet, sentio. In the prologue 
to the same play, Luxuria says (v. 4) : " Nunc, ne quis errct nostrum, 
paucis in uiam Deducam ;" why might not the erret be rendered 
here go astray, instead of Mr. Riley's : " Now that no one may be 
mistaken, ... I will conduct you into the right path?" Our trans- 
lator wishes frequently to improve on the original, and to substitute 
finer words; so in the speech of Charmides on his return (Trin. 
act 4) a place full of metaphors, Mr. Riley gives us " the azure sur- 
face of ocean." Plautus is more vivid, giving campos, fields. Among 
the most common tropes are those pertaining to the art of war. To 
this class belong the words of the Syeophanta {Trin. 867): 'Aput 
i las aedis sistendae nn'hi sunt sycophantiae ; this is not a strong mctu- 



20 

phor, yet the abstract sycophantiae is colored by the word sistendae ; 
it is not "at" this house are my devices to be put in practice" but 
" to be planted " like a balista or tormentum. 

A singular case of delicacy we find in the Braggart Soldier, p. 59 : 
" We are listening to you (it should be : we will listen) with most 
attentive ear." The Latin is, indeed, coarser (v. 774) : "tibi per- 
purgatis dperam dabimus aiiribus." But the English does not con- 
vey the humor of the Latin, and as the phrase is found also in Hor- 
ace and Persius, it should be translated literally, and the application 
'of the word purgare explained in a note. 1 On the same page of the 
translation, Mr. Riley's college feelings have led him to use a term 
which is altogether too modern for the Latin lautam : " Do you want 
one that has taken her degree, or a novice in the art?" The woman 
required to carry out Palaestrio's devices is unquestionably one of 
the strong-minded ; but we have yet to learn that the Romans had 
Female Colleges, or conferred the degree of Mistress of Arts. 

A warm and genial tone is further given by a dexterous applica- 
tion of those little irregularities that occur in every language and 
among all people, by anacoluthic sentences, by the resumption of the 
main subject through a demonstrative pronoun, when the verb is 
separated from the subject by intervening clauses, and the like. Or 
there is a charm of great simplicity where #ords of similar etymo- 
logical origin are connected, like drn tj navzaq ddrai or Toocpot; 
ezQE(pEV, on which connection the Homeric scholiasts so often artlessly 
say : r\ dmXtj on 7taQetv(j,o).oyeT x. t. h 2 In all these cases the Eng- 
lish might with propriety imitate the Latin, without any danger of 
becoming stiff and unnatural, which we admit might sometimes be 
the result of too close an adherence to metaphorical language. 
These little irregularities, however, are not to Mr. Riley's taste ; all 
characters must for him speak in rounded turns, avoiding all appear- 
ance of ease, and using the formal phrases of a bas bleu or a pro- 
fessional talker at a dinner party. Thus, in the prologue of the Tri- 
nummus, Luxuria says (v. 17) : Senes, qui hue uenient, i rem uobis 
aperient ; the chatty i vanishes in the version (p. 4) : " the old men 

1 See on this the commentators on Horace, Epist. 1, 1, 7, particularly Schmid 
and Obbarius ; Otto Jahn on Pers. 5, 63 and 5. 86. 

8 Bacch.399: Nunc Mnesiloche specimen specitur nunc certamen cernitur ; Ri- 
ley, p. 172 : " Now M. the sample is on view, now the contest is being decided" Mil. 
Gl. 799: Me prohibent uxore. quae mi huius similis sermones serat; Riley, p. 
105 : " to be uttering speeches to me like this." Bacch. 640 : Huic statuam statui de- 
cet ex auro. Examples of this, arranged in classes, are given by Lobeck, I'aral. 
Gr. Gr. de figura etymologica, II. p. 501 scq. 



21 

who come hither will disclose the matter to you." In the same play, 
Mr. Riley overlooks the point of the quod ciui immuni cantari solet. 
The words of the malediction are (v. 351) : 

Quod habes ne habeas, et ilhic, quod non habes, habeas, malum. 

According to the translation (p. 19) : "That which thou hast mayst 
thou not have, and mayst thou have that misfortune which thou hast 
not." "What schoolboy does not see here that the epigrammatic 
sting of the saying lies in the unexpected termination ? quod non 
habes habeas is said with a suspension of the voice and then with 
emphasis is added : malum, namely, misfortune. This is so common 
in the comedy, that it were needless to give examples of it ; we would 
only mention as similar, Rudens, 107 : Plesidippus. At di dabunt 
(meaning virile secus). Sceparnio interprets naoa ngogdoxiav. Hem 
tibi quidem hercle quisquis es magnum malum. A sort of parallel- 
ism is to be noticed in the whole speech of Sceledrus in the Mil. GL 
(345 seq.) : utrum egon' id quod uidi uiderim — an illicfaciat quod 
facturum — primus ad cibum uocatur prima pulmentum datur — in 
nostra melius est famulo familia ; then follows v. 352: Set ego quod 
ago id me dgere oportet, a lively sentence with special emphasis on 
the agere, as in the phrase age si quid agis, or the English " If it were 
done when 'tis done then it were well 'twere done quickly." The 
straightforward emphasis of the Latin is not recognized in the 
translation (p. 87) : " But it is necessary for me to mind what I am 
about." 

A studied plainness we find, furthermore, in the case of threats, 
where one wishes to make his words perfectly clear and intelligible, 
that there be no danger of misunderstanding, and then repeats what 
he has said in the very same words. In these instances, Mr. Riley 
takes care to vary the discourse with true Parisian anxiety ; whereby 
the essence and charm of the whole is lost. Take, as an instance, 
Mil. Glor. 504 and 511 (translation, p. 95): "But so may all the 
Gods and Goddesses prosper me if a punishment with the rod is not 
given to you at my requMt" and " If the punishment of the whip is 
not given to you" (the word mi/ri, translated at my request in the 
first passage, being omitted in the second place). We could hardly 
infer from the translalion with what a deliberate calmness the threat 
is uttered, then justified with mock solemnity by the offences of Sce- 
ledrus, ranged with somewhat of the formality of a public accuser 
under four heads, and then clinched by the very same words repeated 



22 

in the same order, the synonyme stimuleum merely being substituted 
for uirgeum : 

V. 502 : Nisi mihi supplicium uirgeum de te datur. 
V. 510 : Nisi mihi supplicium stimuleum de te datur. 

In the following passage, Riley's version gives the sense well 
enough, Mil. Glor. 538 : nunquam edepol hominem quemquam lu- 
dificarier Magi's facete uidi et magis miris modis ; translation, p. 97 : 
" P faith, I never saw any man more cleverly fooled, and by more 
singular devices" But the tinkling of the Latin words is not ade- 
quately given in the English ; the effect of the similarity of ending 
is quite as strong as in Tac. Ann. 1, 24 : nulh's sah's certu mandate, 
in spite of the short magis ; and, furthermore, the words begin with 
the same letter, so that we have a case of homoeoarcta and homo- 
eoteleuta combined, as in Bacch. 96 : o&sonatwm opulznium obsomum. 
Something akin to the effect of this might be given by wise and won- 
drous wags. 1 Altogether, the Alliteration comes off poorly in this 
translation. If we remember rightly, there is a discussion of the 
matter by Nake in one of the early numbers of the Rhenish Museum. 
If Mr. Riley had only studied this he might have drawn many hints 
from it. In some instances, besides the alliteration, a peculiar effect 
is attained by connecting words of the same root, Mil. Glor. 959 : 
Quae te amat tuamque ^xpetessit pulcram pulcritudinem. Riley, p. 
118 : your extreme beauty. V. 998 : Quae arrfat hunc hominem nimium 
lepidum et nimia pulcritiidine ; translation, p. 120 : " this very charm- 
ing man with his exceeding beauty." Ibid, 1177: Facito uti uenias 
ornatu orndtus hue nauclerico; Riley, p. 130: "Take care to come 
here dressed in the garb of a master of a ship." Bacch., 1169: 
Non homo tu quidem es, qui istoc pacto tarn lepidam inlepide appel- 
les; Riley, p. 207 : "You surely are not a man to address a pretty 
woman so rudely in that fashion." Mil. Glor., 7 63: Bonus bene ut 
malos descripsit mores ; Riley, p. 108 : " How cleverly the good soul 
has described their bad manners." lb., 1035 : Quia sic te uolgo 
uolgem; Riley, p. 123: "because I make* you so common to the 
mob." 

— In the scene of the Bacchides, beginning with v. 170, Chrysalus 
the slave, returning to Athens from Ephesus, salutes his master's 
country after the ancient fashion, and then prays to Apollo that he 

1 Examples of this are given by Nipperdey ad Tac. Ann. 1,24; Lobeck. Pa- 
ralipom. Gramm. Graec. I. p. 53. 



23 

may find Pistoclerus, the trusty friend of his young master, before 
meeting with Nicobulus, his master's father. Neither the object of 
the prayer is very creditable to the morality of Chrysalus, nor does 
the tone in which it is spoken say much for his reverence of the god. 
Mr. Riley's words are quite dignified (p. 162) : " I salute thee, neigh- 
bor Apollo, who dost have thy shrine close by our house." Not so 
the real words of Chrysalus : Saluto te, uicine Apollo, qui aedibus 
Propmquos nostris dccolis. In the description of the fight, by the same 
Chrysalus, mention is made of a pirate-galley sent out against his 
master's ship. Nicobulus interposes (v. 281) : Perii hercle ; lem- 
bus llle mihi laedit latus. Mr. Riley renders : " Troth I'm undone ; 
that bark breaks my heart;" adding, in the note: "literally 'hurts 
my side,' or, in other words, ' gives me a twitch.' " This is not the 
exact import of laedit latus; Nicobulus conceives of himself as the 
ship which is attacked by the rostrum of the pirate-galley ; Liv. 28, 
30 : [navis] obliqua ipsa ictum alterius rostri accipiebat ; id. 37, 30 : 
naves neque ipsae ferire rostro hostem poterant et obliquas se ipsae 
ad ictus praebebant. In modern parlance, then, an equivalent would 
be : "I feel her broadside." In v. 296 of the same scene, a military 
expression may also be recognized : " Reuorsionem ad terram faciunt 
uesperi." Riley, p. 168 : " At nightfall they returned ashore." The 
application of the term in military language is seen in the examples 
from Nonius, pp. 222, 18 and 245, 14, given in the lexica, from Var- 
ro : ad milites facit reversionem ; and Caesar : reversionem fecit ne 
post occipitium in Hispania exercitus qui erant relinqueret. The 
idea is: "at nightfall they right about face for shore." 

The strictures we have thus far been compelled to make, would be 
the same if the author translated were an ordinary prose-writer. In 
the drama, a greater difficulty is found than in other works, owing to 
the diversity of character. As a general thing, translators are too apt 
in their microscopic study of detail to overlook many essential points^ 
which cannot be felt till the whole play is so imbibed that it has be- 
come a part of one's succus and sanguis ; they are too much inclined 
to consider the single speeches as so many organic wholes, and to 
overlook the fine-spun threads which bind the parts together. And 
yet this harmonious union of the parts deserves more attention in the 
ancient drama — where speech and counterspeech follow in rapid suc- 
cession, y.ai tvnog uvriivnog y.al nr { \i ini nr\\ia.xi xeitai — than any- 
where else. The eager and dialectic Athenian audience loved a 
quibble, if neatly given, or a smart retort. It was a sort of poetical 
justice on a small scale, when the biter was bit or the captor caught | 



24 

even the march of tragedy is for a while suspended for quibbles and 
cavils that appear to a modern to border on the childish. In the 
comedy something analogous occurs, though not precisely the same. 
Any attentive reader of Plautus will know how important is the mu- 
tual relation of the speeches one to another. The slave who is hem- 
med in on every side, and subject to the caprices of a master in intel- 
lect often below himself, raises himself by a skilful play of words to 
a moral equality with his owner, or finds a humorous consolation in 
pert repetitions. For example, in the Bacchides, 671, Chrysalus 
says : Fortassis tu atiri dempsisti parum ? Mnesilochus replies : 
Quid, malum, parum ? l'mmo uero nimis multo minus quam parum. 
Then Chrysalus retorts: Quid malum igitur stiilte, quoniam, etc. 
Mr. Riley renders this (p. 184) : '• Chr. Perhaps you took too little 
of the gold ? Mnes. How a plague too little ? Why yes, indeed, a 
very great deal less than too little. Chr. Why the mischief, then, 
simpleton," etc. The peculiar pertness of the slave is lost by the 
variation : Why the mischief and How a plague. In the same way, 
Stasimus answers with a fling at Callicles in the Trinummus, 602 : 
Call. Quomodo tu istuc, Stasime, dixti ? Stas. Nostrum erilem fi- 
lium Lesbonicum swam sororem despopondisse ; hoc modo. The tone 
in which the hoc modo is said, can be better learned from a good 
reader than from a commentary ; it is not recognized in the colorless 
translation (p. 32) : " To what effect were you speaking about this, 
Stasimus. Stas. That Lesbonicus, the son of my master, has be- 
trothed his sister ; in those terms.''- This impudence it is occasionally 
difficult to give in the English. So with the confirmatory particle 
ne, placed by way of exception after the pronoun it modifies, to make 
an antithesis in an answer to the interrogative particle ne. Of the 
many instances of this we quote one {Mil. Glor. 438) : Philocoma- 
sium. Egone? the slave Sceledrus. Tu ne. Riley, p. 92: "Phil. 
I ? Sceledr, Yes, you." This should have been noticed in an ex- 
planatory note. 

In the Index appended to the second volume of the translation 
(p. 541), we have a long list of " Puns, equivoques, Onomatopoea and 
play upon words instances of in the author.'* Plays upon words, 
Onomatopoea, equivoques and puns are not the highest species of wit ; 
nevertheless, we can only commend the translator for referring to 
them, and we presume this is one of the things of which " it is hoped 
they may be found of value to the classical student." Though 
strength be wanting, the good will is worthy of all praise. Yet We 
could not in conscience recommend the classical student to pin his 



25 

faith in Plautinian punstery on Mr. Riley's sleeve ; for some of the 
most obvious puns he not only passes by without comment, and with- 
out including them in his formidable list, but he translates them in 
such a way as clearly to show that he has not noticed them. An 
instance is Bacch., 276: Chrys. Quin tu audi. Nicobulus. Hem, 
auidi ingenium haut pernoram hospitis. One sees at the first glance 
that a pun is here " perpetrated," as Mr. Riley would call it in his 
college slang, 1 on the words audi and auidi, which stand in the 
same relation to each other as nauta and navita, fautor and favitor. 
The commentators do not mention it, and so the translator does not 
see it; he renders blindly (p. 167) : " Chrys. Nay, but do you listen. 
Nicob. Well, I was not aware of the disposition of my avaricious 
entertainer." He should have read his Cicero, and related in a note 
the anecdote of Marcus Crassus and the Caunian figs. When this 
general was embarking his troops for the Parthian war, he was met 
by a huckster, crying Caunian figs : " Cauneas ! Cauneas ! " Though 
burning, doubtless, to engage with the enemy, the general was too 
prudent to disregard the evident admonitions of the gods ; for was 
not Cauneas manifestly meant for caue ne eas ? 2 

It is often effective for the dramatic poet that his hearers know 
more of the course of events than the speakers themselves. When 
Oedipus, in the play of Oedipus King, finds out by long and painful 
search that it was he who killed his father La'ius, it was not without 
a secret feeling of exultation that the spectator, who had heard the 
story a hundred times on his grandam's knee, congratulated himself 
on his superior knowingness. " There now," he would cry towards 
the end of the play, " you've found it out at last ; why, I knew it all, 
half an hour ago. You are a king, Oedipus, and I am only a oxv~ 
vozofiog or yvacpevg. If I had only had your opportunities, I should 
have managed it a hundred times better." Of all such vanity, Mr. 
Riley must be acquitted. He has too great respect for all the speakers 
to imagine he knows more than they ; he is too ingenuous to conceive 
that a word used by one man in a particular sense, may be understood 
by the second in a different way, and that thus a quibble or series of 
•quibbles may arise, which are sometimes diverting. When Mnesi- 
lochus arrives from abroad, his young friend Pistoclerus, unaware 
of the change in his friendly disposition, proposes to give him the 
cena uiatica usually given to returning friends. Mnesilochus, how- 
ever, has decided objections to a supper which " riles his bile." 

1 See his note on page 168. a Cic. dc Div. 2, 40, 84; Plin. 15, 19, 2L 

3 



26 

" What ? " says the simple-minded Pistoclerus, " you don't mean to 
say you've been taken ill on your arrival? Mnesilochus answers : 
" Aye, and grievously ill too," meaning by his illness a mind diseased 
at the discovery of his friend's supposed treachery. But we do best 
to let Plautus himself speak, JBacch., 536: Pistocler. Saluos sis 
Mnesiloche. Mnesil. Salue. Pistocl. Saluos peregre quom adue- 
nis, cena detur. Mnes. Non placet mihi cena quae bilem movet 
Pistocl. Niim quae aduenienti aegritudo obiectast ? Mnes. Atque 
acerruma. Pistocler. 'Vnde ? Mnesil. Ab homine, quern mi ami- 
cum esse arbitratus sum antidhac. 

Now the translation (p. 178) : "Pistocl. Health to you Mnesilo- 
chus ! Mnesil. Hail ! Pistocl. As you are arrived safe from abroad 
a dinner must be given. MnesiL A dinner pleases me not which 
excites my choler. PistocL Has any vexation befallen you on your 
arrival? Mnesil. Aye, and a very grievous one. Pistocl, From 
what quarter ? Mnesil. From a person whom heretofore I had sup- 
posed to be my friend." 

Let us suppose for a moment that Mr. Riley were translating 
Shakspeare from the Latin, and had before him the Latin equivalent 
for : " You stir my choler* « — Then take your neck out of your col- 
lar." This he would undoubtedly render as follows : u You excite 
my indignation. — Then take your neck out of your ruff." 

We append one instance more where Mr. Riley overlooks an ob- 
vious point. It is v. 692 seq. of the Trin. : haec famigeratio Te 
honestet, me autem conultitet, si sine dote duxeris. Tibi sit emolu- 
mentum honoris : mihi quod obiectent^ siet. Lysit. Quid ? te dictato- 
rem censes fore, si aps te agrum acc^perim ? Riley, p. 37 : " The 
spreading of this report might do credit to you, but it would defile 
me, if you were to marry her without a portion. For you it would 
be a gain of reputation ; for me it would be something for people to 
throw in my teeth. Lys, Why so ? Do you suppose that you will 
become Dictator if I accept the land of you ? " This translation is 
quite blind, and makes Lysiteles's answer appear out of place. Not 
less blind is the note on the passage! "Lysiteles says satirically, 
and rather unkindly it would seem, 'What? do you suppose, that if 
I accept this piece of land from you, you will attain the Dictatorship 
as the reward of your high spirit?' The Dictatorship was the 
highest honor in the Roman Republic." The fact of the case is sim- 
ply this : Lesbonicus uses the word honos of course in the sense of 
sit honori, sit laudi tibi, Lysiteles quibbles on it, and speaks as if he 
understood it in its political sense, " office in the state serviced 



27 

We have thus treated mainly of two classes of faults in this trans- 
lation : disregard of the laws of criticism, and want of appreciation of 
the Plautinian dramas as works of art. Perhaps we ought (we cer- 
tainly should if we had proceeded systematically) to have spoken, first 
of all, of the translator's ignorance of Latin. One generally presup- 
poses, however, on the appearance of a new translation, that the 
translator is acquainted with the language of the author ; and not 
till one is satisfied that a book does not answer higher requisitions, 
does he inquire whether it satisfies the lowest demands that can be 
made of it. Superficial as the classical instruction is thought to be 
in most American colleges, we believe that a dozen students might 
be selected from the two upper classes in any college, who, with the 
aid of a grammar and dictionary, and with a few general directions, 
would succeed in producing a much better translation of Plautus. 
The greater part of Mr. Riley's errors are grammatical and syntactical, 
and even in the plays we have cursorily run over, their number is so 
large that we must point out classes rather than examples. We can- 
not enumerate all the cases where mistakes have been made in the 
forms of verbs, e.g. Bacch. 123: "I, stiiltior es barbaro Poticio, 
Qui tantus natu diorum nescis nomina; translation, p. 159 : " Go to, 
you are more foolish than Poticius, the foreigner, who at an age so 
advanced [N. B. that these words are applied to Poticius instead of 
Lydus] knew not the names of the divinities." 1 Nor can we treat 
of blunders in the forms of nouns, as Trin. 826 : Nam te omnes sae- 
uom — commemorant, ego contra opera expertus; Mr. Riley's trans- 
lation, p. 44 : " on the other hand, I have experienced your kindly 
aid," indicates that he takes the ablative opera in the common phrase 
opera experiri (Capt. 435. Mercat. 1, 2, 42. Bacch. 387) for the 
neuter plural of opus. Some mistakes occur so often that it is incon- 
ceivable that the translator himself should not at some lucky moment 
have had some glimmering of the truth. The corrective power of 
immo or immo uero is generally unnoticed ; Trin. p. 51 : " Charmides. 

1 Trin. 463: Lesbonic. 'Oculum ego ccfodiam tibi Si ue'rbum additions. Stas. 
Hercle quin dieam tamen ; Nam si sic non licebit luscus dixero ; " i. e. I will have 
my say notwithstanding, and if you dig out my eye, so that I cannot speak as a 
two-eyed man, I will speak at any rate with one eye." Now hear Riley, p. 26 : 
" Stas. Troth, but I will talk ; for if I may not be allowed to do so as I am, then 
I will submit to be called (dixero) the one-eyed man." Bacch. 1135: Exoluere 
quanti fuerc ; Kiley, p. 205 : " Of whatever value they may have been they are 
now out of date." As nearly as one can divine what the translator means here, 
he understands quanti as equivalent to quanticumque, and takes exoluere for the 
perfect of exolesco. 



28 

How now; and did you ascend even to the heavens? Sharper. 
Yes ; we were carried in a little skiff right on up the river against 
the tide." From this English, one could hardly conjecture that the 
Latin is as follows (942) : Eho, 'An etiam in caelum escendisti? Im- 
mo horiola aduecti sumus, where the corrective immo substitutes the 
easy sailing up for the more difficult clambering up. 1 The various 
cases of ecquis and ecqui are commonly misunderstood in the transla- 
tion. Mil. 794: ecquae ancillast flli ? Peripl. Est prime cata; 
Riley, p. 110 : " But what sort of a maid has she ? Peripl. She is a 
rare clever one," for " has she a maid ? she has" etc. 2 Among other 
prevalent mistakes we would mention mistranslations of si used in the 
sense of the Greek si, to see if. 3 With the negatives, also, mistakes 
occur (Trin. 62) : Ne tu hercle faxo haut nescias quam rem egeris; 
Riley, p. 6 : " Aye, faith, I should cause you not to be knowing the thing 
you were about ;" with the explanation in the note : " that is the risk 
you run in taking her for your wife." The real meaning is the op- 
posite. In the same play (319) : Mihi quidem aetas actast ferme, 
tua istuc refert maxume ; the common idiom tua refert is misappre- 
hended in the translation (p. 17) : "my life, indeed, is nearly spent; 
this matter principally concerns your own." Bacchides, 1170 : Se- 

1 Some other striking instances of mistranslation of immo, are Trin. 991. Miles, 
1400. 1248. 978. Bacch. 572. 

2 So with the neuter (Mil. 42) : Pyrgop. Ecquid meministi'? Artotrog. Me- 
mini ; centum in Cilicia ; Riley, p. 72 : " What do you remember ? Artotr. I do 
remember this. Other pronouns also come in for their share of mistakes ; so 
quidam [Trin. 342): set ego hoc verbum quom ;'//i quoidam dico praemonstro 
tibi; Riley, p. 19: "but when I apply these expressions to that same person." 
Further, ipse (Trin. 800) : uxorem quoque eampse uti celes face; translation, p. 
42 : " take care that you conceal this matter from that same wife of yours." 
Also istic (Trin. 818) : eo ego ergo igitur intro ad omcium meum. Tu istuc age ; 
translation, p. 43 : "I am going indoors then, to do my duty in consequence. 
Do you see about this matter," for ' do you do your part.' The neuter relative 
pronoun he renders in the following sentence, quam quae mulieres sc. faciunt 
(Mil. 465) : " in carrying out anything with as much boldness as some women." 
Alienus homo he understands a certain person (p. 89). The adverb tec is falsely 
translated by the pronoun (Trin. 28): Nam hie nimium morbus mores inuasit 
bonos; Riley, p. 4: "For this faultiness (no! morbus = disease) has encroached 
too much on good morals." What faultiness pray 1 Hie means here, aput nos, 
as in v. 34. On the contrary, in the Miles, 61 : Rogitabant; yl hicin' Achilles" 
inquit mihi. " Immo eius frater " inquam ; translation, p. 72 : " They ques- 
tioned me about you. ' Is Achilles here ? ' says one to me. No says (sic) I, his t 
brother is." 

9 Cf. on this usage, Herzog on Caes. B. C. 2, 34, 1. For instances of the 
mistranslation, see pp. 9. 10. 29. 52. 131. 



29 

nex optume quantumst in terra sine me hoc exorare abs te ut, etc. ; 
Riley, p. 207 : " Most worthy old gentleman, by whatsoever is on the 
earth let me entreat this of you that," etc. The quantumst in terra 
does not mean what it is made to, but belongs immediately with the 
superlative; it is the same construction which is found, Rudens, 708: 
Exi e fano natum quantumst hominum sacrilegissume ; examples of 
this usage are given by Heindorf on Hor. Sat. 1. 6, 1. 

The following are some of the mistranslations of single words : 
Mil. 720 : Continuo excruciarer animi ; Riley : " I should have been 
everlastingly tormented in mind," for straightway. lb. 971 : Ut tui 
copiam sibi potestatemque facias ; " that you may give her your sup- 
port and assistance," p. 119. In this play we have one most remark- 
able error; it is in the sentence in v. 1191: Ego illi dicam ut me 
adiutorem qui onus feram ad portiim roget; translation, p. 131 : "I 
shall tell him that she ash for me to be a helper to carry her bag- 
gage down to the harbor." 'Hie iubebit me ire cum ilia ad portum 
(this is entirely omitted in the English) ; ego adeo ut tu scias Pror- 
sum Athenas protinam abibo tecum ; " I shall go, and understand 
you I shall immediately be off with you for Athens." The particle 
adeo, used here as frequently, to set off the ego against the ille, Mr. 
Riley takes for the verb adeo or abeo. 

The word aedem, Trin. 687, Riley renders building. "Why not 
temple % lb. 687 : 'Atque eum me agrum habere quam te, tiia qui 
toleres moenia; Mr. R. (p. 37) takes qui for the nominative instead 
of the ablative. V. 886 : Concubium sit n<5ctis priusquam ad postre- 
mum perueneris ; Riley (p. 47) : " "T would be the dead of night be- 
fore you could come to the end of it ;" Concubium is not the dead of 
the night, but bed-time. 1 In the words which immediately follow, we 
have the noun and adjective inverted in the translation : 'Opus far- 
tost uiatico. " There is need of provision crammed tightly in for 
your name ;" what provision is, is intelligible, but what " p. crammed 
tightly in" can be, is not. Viaticum is the adjective and fartum the 
noun. 2 V. 903 : Sesquipede quidamst quam tu longior ; translation, 
p. 48 : " He is a person somewhere about half a foot taller than you." 
Sesquipede means a foot and a half. 

In the Bacch. 36, we read : Bacchis. 'Vbi me fugiet memoria ibi 
tu faeito ut subuenias soror. Soror. Pol magis metuo mi in mo- 
nendo ne defuerit optio ; Riley, p. 154 : " B. When my memory 

1 Dissen, de partibus diei et noctis. 

* Prolegg. Trin. p. lxxxi. Yet here the other reading opus factost viatico is 
not improbable, and is defended by Haupt in the Bhein. Mus., 1850, p. 478. 

3* 



30 

shall fail me then do you take care to aid me, sister. 2d Bacch. T 
faith I'm more afraid that I shan't have the choice of prompting you." 
As it stands this is incomprehensible ; in order to attach any idea at 
all to this answer of the sister we must at least say : " the choice of 
prompting you or not." Even so it is putid. Mr. Riley has here 
confounded the two words optio ; the optio of this place means as in 
Asin. 101 : "assistant." tibi optionem sume Leonidam. In vs. 814 t 
815, we find a more pardonable error : O stulte, stulte, nescis nunc 
ueni're te : Atque in eopse adstas lapide ut praeco praedicat. The 
English is (p. 191) : "0 fool, fool, you know not that you are at this 
moment on sale ; and that [another error, there is here no depend- 
ence] you are standing on the very same [sic] stone as the auctioneer 
puts you up." Our translator does not agree with the student in 
Faust, that the word must always be accompanied by an idea,; he 
follows rather the injunction of Mephistopheles, and holds fast to 
words, when ideas fail; the words "as the auctioneer puts you up," 
are inserted as an equivalent for the Latin, but they have no mean- 
ing at all ; ut is here neither a particle of comparison nor a temporal 
particle. As ubi refers primarily to place, secondly to time, so con- 
versely ut (like the Greek ha) may have a secondary local meaning. 
Examples of this are not given in the ordinary dictionaries, at least 
not in Forcellini, Scheller, nor Freund j 1 the usage is mentioned by 
Gesner, Thesaurus, IV. p. 1119, and instances adduced. 2 

Mr. Riley's Notes are as bad as his text. We have referred above 
to the present condition of Plautinian exegesis. It will be a great 
addition to philological literature when the Justi Commentarii prom- 
ised by Ritschl appear. But years will probably pass before this 
takes place. In the mean time, the necessary illustration of the au- 
thor must be drawn from other sources. Our translator sometimes 

1 Nor has the American translator added it, as he should have done. 

2 Of the countless errors and misstatements we are compelled to pass over, there 
is one to which we must allude, though we must refrain from commenting on it, 
as we cannot do so in terms consistent with the character of this Eeview. It is 
Bacch. 107 : Simul hie nescio qui turhare coepit : decedamus hinc. The trans- 
lator gives this so (p. 158) : "2nd Bacch. A little so sister (Pistoclerus is seen 
at a distance). Besides, he's beginning to cause I don't know what bustle. 
Let's begone hence." Every man has a right to ablcpsy, but Mr. Riley abuses 
his right. If he chooses in his own private studies to go back a couple of centu- 
ries, and to disregard everything that has been done in that time, it is folly to be 
sure, but folly in which he has a perfect right to indulge. When, however, in a 
printed book he covertly attributes to Ritschl a false interpretation which this 
distinguished scholar was the first to expose and repudiate (see Ritschl's own 
words, Rhein. Mug. 1846, p. 600, note), it is more than folly,— -it is immorality. 



31 

draws his erudition from the Delphin editor ; sometimes from Smith's 
Dictionary of Antiquities. The latter is a very good book, but it is 
meant for young pupils, and not for public teachers. In other cases 
his quotations have a most recondite air; the unstable levity of his 
own attainments is ballasted by weighty names, as the puny poet 
Philetas of Cos put lead on his sandals to prevent being blown away. 
He says, for instance : " We learn from Caelius Rhodiginus" (p. 55) ; 
"we learn from Festus" (pp. 4 and 102) ; " Varro tells us" (p. 5) ; 
" we learn from Cato (on Rural Matters) " (p. 70) ; " we learn from 
St. Augustine," and the like. We should have recommended to Mr. 
Riley to remember the sound advice of Niebuhr : never to quote at 
second-hand a passage from a classical author without crediting the 
source from which you have taken it. It is not consistent with our 
plan to consider the cases in which such erudition is borrowed and 
improperly applied, as we wish to reserve the remainder of our space 
for original errors. We glance at a few. In v. 308 of the Bacchides, 
we find a note about the Megabuzi or Megalobuzi, priests of the Ephe- 
sian Artemis. Chrysalus is inventing a fiction to account for the non- 
delivery of the money for which Mnesilochus and he had gone to 
Ephesus ; the money, he says, was deposited with one Theotimus, a 
priest. " Who is this Theotimus," says Nicobulus. " 0," says Chry- 
salus, " he is the son of Megalobyzus." Mr. Riley mentions in the 
note the view of Taubmann, 4 ' that Megabyzus was a general name 
for the priests of Diana ; and that the words ' Megabyzi Alius/ a son 
of Megabyzus, have the same import as the word Megabyzus itself." 
It is true, now, the filius M. may stand for. one of the Megabyzi, 
after the analogy of naideg laigmv, QqroQcov, etc. But what the 
English commentator adds de suo, had better have been left out : "It 
may, however, mean that Theotimus was a priest, and not of neces- 
sity that his father was so." We do not see how this could well be 
the case. For in the first place, Strabo says distinctly that the Me- 
galobyzi were the priests of Artemis, and consequently the father of 
Theotimus must have been a priest; secondly, Strabo says in the 
same place that these Megalobyzi were evvovxot. 1 At what time of 
life these priests became evvovxoi, we confess we do not know ; it is 
barely possible that a Megabyzus might have a son before becoming 
a priest. But it seems probable that the ready-witted Chrysalus 
goes a step beyond the mark, and, in his anxiety to make a plausi- 
ble story with due particulars about names and dates, connects two 

1 See the copious citations in Hermann, Alterth. II. p. 345, note 4 ; and Par- 
erga Plautina, p. 406 seq. 



32 

ideas, which the audience would at once see to be inconsistent, viz. 
the son of Megabyzus = filius eunuchi. 

Page 175, Riley, we have a very misty note on a clear matter; it 
is on the place in the Bacch. 465 : Nam ilium meum malum promp- 
tare malim quam peciilium. The note is : " He seems to mean that 
he had rather put up with insult or violence from his pupil than be 
responsible for his misdeeds ; in which latter case probably some 
part of his peculium or savings would be taken from him in the 
shape of fines." Mr. Riley has translated it rightly, but does not 
understand his own translation ; the idea is this : * whatever he has 
the disposal of melts away ; I wish then he would have the charge 
of my mishaps rather than of my peculium ; for in that case my flog- 
gings, etc. would be diminished day by day/ 

Bacch. 879 : Chrys. Ducentis Philippis pepigi. Nicob. Vah, sa- 
lus, Me seruauisti. Riley, p. 193 : " I've struck the bargain for two 
hundred Philippeans. Nicob. Well done ! Goddess Salvation thou 
hast saved me." Note : " It was a proverbial expression with the 
Romans to say that the goddess Salus, 'health' or 'salvation* 'had 
saved' or 'could not save' a person, as the case might be." This 
note would be applicable, Capt. 528 : Neque Salus seruare si uolt 
me potest. But the salus is here the abstract for the concrete, Chry- 
salus is the salvation of his master. 1 

Apart from the positive errors in the notes, which have a direct 
bearing on the understanding of the original, many statements might 
be adduced in which an exploded idea is indirectly inculcated, and 
which make the book a dangerous one to put into the hands of youth. 
Such is the assertion, for instance, on p. 23, about the Porta Trige- 
mina receiving " its name from the three twin-born [sic] brothers 
the Horatii who passed beneath it when going to fight the Vuriatii " a 
(note on p. 133). Such too is the note on Sappho (p. 133, Riley) : 
" who was enamored of Phaon the Lesbian ; when he deserted her, 
she threw herself from the Leucadian promontory or Lover's Leap." 
If Sappho had been a contemporary of Mr. Riley, he would have 
considered the matter twice before making so serious a charge ; but 
as she lived many centuries ago, he does not hesitate. But truth is 
independent of time ; and our translator deserves as severe a castiga- 
tion for repeating without a moment's inquiry or without a modifying 

1 Cf. in general on this mode of expression, Nagelsbach, Lat. Stilistrk, p. 36. 
* See the remarks of Becker, de Rom. vcteris mnris atque portis, Lipsiae, 
1842, p. 94 5 id. Rom. Alterthumer, 1. p. 158. 



33 

clause the slanders which Welcker has proved to be morally impos- 
sible, as if Sappho had died yesterday. 

"We cannot refrain from mentioning one place more in the notes, 
which borders on obscurity; it is on p. 137: "He asks what has 
been done with or become of his eye ? on which Pleusicles tells him, 
by way of a quibble, that he has got his eye, alluding to his right one, 
while the Captain alludes to the left over which the lectica has been 
placed." We need not remind the reader that Pleusicles comes in 
disguised with a ship-master's dress. But why Mr. Riley wishes to 
put a sedan-chair over his eye we are unable to say, nor do we see 
the advantages to be derived from so strange an ophthalmic treat- 
ment. Would it not be as well to hold fast to the word used by 
Plautus in a preceding part of the play, and call it a culcita rather 
than a lectica ? 1 

In the beginning of the Bacchides, besides the spurious verses to 
which allusion has been made, a translation has been added of the 
fragments which Ritschl has collected and arranged. The transla- 
tion has then the merit of novelty ; probably no edition nor transla- 
tion exists which, like this, exhibits the play with two heads. On the 
probable bearing of these fragments several notes are appended ; on 
the first verse, which reads : " those who are of a thrifty turn of 
mind, modest and without servility," the annotation is (p. 151) : 
" It is not unlikely that this and the next three lines are fragments 
of a Prologue, spoken by Pistoclerus, in which he is complimenting 
the ingenuity shown by the slave Chrysalus throughout the piece, as 
he is making reference to the punishment of slaves when speaking 
of ' chains, rods, and the mill ;' to which latter place refractory slaves 
were sent for hard labor." It is more probable that Pistoclerus, who 
is engaged by his friend Mnesilochus, to find for him his mistress 
Bacchis, takes occasion to moralize, and to contrast the condition of 
the upright young man with that of reckless fellows like his friend ; 
to the chains, rods and mill the sufferings of the lover are compared. 
The dramatic interest of the first part of the piece depends much on 
the character of Pistoclerus and his sudden transformation ; and un- 
less this idea is seized and made prominent, the general bearing of 
the fragments can hardly be understood. The whole subject is fully 
discussed in two articles by Ritschl ; in the first, published at Bres- 
lau in 1836, and afterwards reprinted in the Parerga Plautina; the 

1 We may observe, in this connection, that Riley has not followed the proper 
punctuation on y. 1182; see Rhein. Mus. 1850, p. 317. 



34 

second on " The original form of the Plautinian Bacchides," in the 
Rhenish Museum, IV. pp. 354 and 567. The latter article may be 
considered a running commentary on the beginning of the play, and 
as the editor here justifies his arrangement of the fragments, and 
points out the connection of the several parts, a translator must in 
justice to him study it carefully. Mr. Riley does not appear to have 
seen it. At any rate, he has made no use of it. Nor has he, further- 
more, availed himself of the ingenious and delightful commentary of 
Schneidewin on the first scene of the second act. 1 It is here that 
Pistoclerus, who has suddenly fallen a victim to the arts of Bacchis, 
comes upon the stage at the head of a whole army of cooks and at- 
tendants, with all the appurtenances for the opulentum obsonium to 
be held at Bacchis's house. At this inauspicious moment, he is met 
by Lydus, the stern old teacher of his younger days. It is easy for 
Lydus to infer from the appearance of his pupil, what his objects 
are ; and the dialogue which takes place in consequence, is one of 
the liveliest in the whole play. One peculiar feature, however, in 
the whole conversation was never recognized till pointed out by 
Schneidewin ; the retorts of Pistoclerus all have reference to the in- 
structions of Lydus, and contain parodies on his former dictations. 
Thus, when Lydus inquires who lives in yon house, the dwelling of 
the Bacchides, Pistoclerus answers with a string of names : Amor 
Voluptas Venus Venustas Gaiidium Locus Liidus Sermo Suauisuaui- 
atio ; this is a parody on the names of deities, which were thrown 
into the form of versus memoriales for the convenience of youth, as 
in the following verses of Ennius, which embrace the names of the 
twelve gods : 

Juno Vesta Minerva Ceres Diana Venus Mars 
Mercurius Jovis Neptunus Volcanus Apollo. 

And the following question of Lydus shows that he perceives the allu- 
sion : Quid tibi commercist cum dis damnosissumis ? This question 
gives Pistoclerus a chance for another parody ; his answer is given 
in syllogistic form : Mali sunt homines qui bonis dicunt male ; Tu 
dis nee recte dicis : non aequom facis, a hit at Lydus's old lessons in 
logic. The moral observations and common-places, the historical 
and mythological allusions, in which this scene abounds, all find in 
this way their ready explanation. 

And this leads us to speak of another remarkable thing which has 
continually forced itself on our attention in the perusal of the notes 

1 Scena Plautina, in the Rhcin. Mus. II. p. 415 seq. 



35 

of this version. It will hardly be credited that one should have at- 
tempted to translate an author who himself translates from the Greek, 
who describes Greek scenes and Greek men and Greek ways, and 
who abounds in reminiscences of Greek poets and proverbs, without 
being penetrated with the spirit of the Greek literature. Yet such 
is the case. Mr. Riley has done nothing for the illustration of his 
author by citations from the Greeks ; nay, far from showing this, the 
occasional mention of Greek names in the notes would go to prove 
that he never studied that language at all. Where he quotes a 
word he makes a blunder; his accents are at one time dealt out 
meagrely, at another time scattered broadcast with the lavish profu- 
sion of Lord Timothy Dexter's punctuation-marks; it would have 
been well if, like that sagacious gentleman, he had added a page 
or two at the end of his book, of perispomena and properis- 
pomena, oxytona, paroxytona and proparoxytona, that the gentle 
reader might season the Greek as he chose. When he so far com- 
mits himself as to translate a Greek name, he translates it wrongly. 
In a note on the Bacchides (p. 149), we are told that "this play 15 
generally supposed to have been borrowed from a Comedy of Menan- 
<ter, which was called dig 'E^unazmv, " the Twice Deceived." The 
name of Paris, Alexander, is derived, according to the same erudite 
source (note on p. 109), "from two Greek words, signifying 'the 
h'ave man.' " A few pages afterward (note on p. 162), we have 
some information about one " Apollo Prostiteros." That the reader 
who h so fortunate as not to own Mr. Riley's translation, may not 
imagine this the nam© of some foreign scholar, or some mediaeval 
commentator, we would inform him that this is the form assumed 
under Mr. Riley's Circean wand by the old-fashioned Apollo Pros- 
taterios. The Captain's name, Pyrgopolinices, from whom the play 
of the Miles Ghriosus has its appellation, means (note on p. 69), 
*"the much-conquering tower,' or something similar." The vague- 
ness of these words, or something similar, is discreditable in a philo- 
logian. According to this interpretation of the ending -nices, the 
name of the Athenian Hipponicus would mean "the Conquering 
Horse," and Nausinicus " the Conquering Ship," or something simi- 
lar. The middle component of the name, in direct opposition to the 
simplest laws of Greek composites, he derives from noXvg instead of 
atohg; and what makes the matter still worse is, that in v. 1055 of 
the same play, Plautus himself gives what is nearly a Latin equiva- 
lent for the Greek name, viz. urbicape, occisor regum. 

From the cursory view we have thus taken of this version of Plan- 



36 

tus, it will be evident, we trust, that the objections we have to make 
to it, are not unfounded. It is always pleasanter to praise than to 
blame, and nothing is more disagreeable than to censure without 
qualification. But, as Plautus says, if it be a thankless task, it is 
sometimes useful : castigare ob meritam noxiam Immoene est facinus, 
uerum in aetate utile et conducibile. Mr. Bohn's Collection is destined 
to do much harm before its real nature is apprehended. It may be 
seen on the shelves of all our booksellers, and is praised in the shal- 
low newspaper articles of the day. It is its phalanx-front alone 
which makes it appear imposing. If Mr. Riley's book had appeared 
by itself, we should never have noticed it. But many respectable 
men in both hemispheres will buy whatever appears in a collective 
form, thinking to get in a complete mass the whole wisdom and 
learning of the ancients. Yet it is obviously not intended mainly 
for this class of readers. The evident plan of the publisher, whose 
good name, as far as we know, has never before been tarnished, is to 
furnish to classical students, openly and on a broad scale, those works 
which have long been considered dishonorable aids, rather than mista- 
ken pedagogical appliances. The way in which the collection is made, 
will, however, it may be reasonably hoped, defeat the publisher's plans, 
and make it an unprofitable investment. Yet it is not the errors, 
however abundant they may be, for which the undertaking is chiefly 
to be condemned. It is for the low standard of scholarship here set 
up, for the absence of all those qualities which a liberal education is 
supposed to foster and draw out, for the substitution of accident in 
the place of law, and unquestioning mechanical plodding in the place 
of methodical philosophical investigation. And all this is done at a 
time when English scholarship is giving unequivocal signs of a speedy 
regeneration. For unless the symptoms be deceptive, a new time is 
approaching, when the application of foreign method and the engraft- 
ment of foreign erudition on native sterling English good sense, will 
produce new fruits; not like the exotic productions in which the 
English classical press has for some years past abounded, mere compi- 
lations and assimilations of other men's labors, but fruits from a sturdy 
English stock of which the germ indeed has been brought from abroad, 
but which has taken fast hold of English ground, and thrives in Eng- 
lish air. We sincerely hope that this time is not far distant ; and 
then English Philology will be stripped of its technical scholastic 
character, will show its adaptation to the times, and advance with a 
rapidity not less than that of the material sciences* 



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